MORE STUFF IN SPACE
The US Space Force Has Detected an Unknown Object Orbiting Near China's SatelliteAnd it 'appears to be a deliberate synchronization'.
By Brad Bergan Nov 10, 2021
China's Long March-3B vehicle rocketing to space.
CCTV / YouTube
China's satellite might have a companion.
The U.S. Space Force has detected a mysterious object orbiting in parallel with China's new Shijian-21 spacecraft, according to an initial report from SpaceNews.
And, since it might be moving under its own power, we're still not clear on what it is. But we have several theories about what it might be, from a new space junk device to the latest exhibition of space war tactics.
China's space junk-cleaning satellite might have a companion
China's Shijian-21 satellite was launched into space atop a Long March-3B rocket, back on Oct. 23. At the time, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said its spacecraft "entered the planned orbit successfully", and would "be mainly used to test and verify space debris mitigation technologies." There's not much to parse in this announcement with relevance to the newly-detected object, but China isn't usually very forthcoming about space endeavors. But on Nov. 3, the U.S. military began to monitor an unidentified object orbiting in parallel with Shijian-21, and the Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron categorized the detection as an "apogee kick motor", dubbing it 2021-094C.
An apogee kick motor is typically used to lift payloads into operational orbits, including geostationary orbits (GEO). When they're finished with them, satellites sometimes kick their apogee kick motors away, but this is "pretty rare", and "almost always done by launching to the GEO graveyard, ejecting the motor, and then lowering the payload into GEO proper," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in a Gizmodo report. Graveyard orbits are where the lion's share of space junk resides, where satellites go after they've outlived their usefulness. This is typically deliberate, so the risk of in-space collisions is reduced as the volume of blindingly fast bits of debris becomes more abundant in orbital space.
Unknown object's motion 'appears to be a deliberate synchronization'
China's satellite might have a companion.
The U.S. Space Force has detected a mysterious object orbiting in parallel with China's new Shijian-21 spacecraft, according to an initial report from SpaceNews.
And, since it might be moving under its own power, we're still not clear on what it is. But we have several theories about what it might be, from a new space junk device to the latest exhibition of space war tactics.
China's space junk-cleaning satellite might have a companion
China's Shijian-21 satellite was launched into space atop a Long March-3B rocket, back on Oct. 23. At the time, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said its spacecraft "entered the planned orbit successfully", and would "be mainly used to test and verify space debris mitigation technologies." There's not much to parse in this announcement with relevance to the newly-detected object, but China isn't usually very forthcoming about space endeavors. But on Nov. 3, the U.S. military began to monitor an unidentified object orbiting in parallel with Shijian-21, and the Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron categorized the detection as an "apogee kick motor", dubbing it 2021-094C.
An apogee kick motor is typically used to lift payloads into operational orbits, including geostationary orbits (GEO). When they're finished with them, satellites sometimes kick their apogee kick motors away, but this is "pretty rare", and "almost always done by launching to the GEO graveyard, ejecting the motor, and then lowering the payload into GEO proper," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in a Gizmodo report. Graveyard orbits are where the lion's share of space junk resides, where satellites go after they've outlived their usefulness. This is typically deliberate, so the risk of in-space collisions is reduced as the volume of blindingly fast bits of debris becomes more abundant in orbital space.
Unknown object's motion 'appears to be a deliberate synchronization'
GEO is a special case of orbital trajectories, where satellites assume an orbit that moves in synchrony with the geographical location on Earth below. This makes them appear to "stand still" to observers on the ground, despite how fast they are still moving through space. Satellites are typically installed in these comparatively high orbits to provide telecommunications or weather data for a specific region of Earth. But ejecting an object from a satellite in GEO "is a bad idea and very rare," added McDowell in the report, since this heightens the risk of a subsequent collision with other satellites and equipment in GEO or lower trajectories.
However, nobody said it had to be an apogee kick motor, and the evidence suggests it's actually something else. As of writing, it's "currently unknown whether the object is an [apogee kick motor], an object possibly related to space debris mitigation tests, or part of potential counterspace operation tests," wrote SpaceNews in their report. "The object could be used to test rendezvous and proximity operations, refueling experiments or manipulation using a robotic arm or other means." Both Shijian-21 and 2021-094C are still orbiting the Earth roughly 50 miles (80 km) above nominal GEO, "which is well within the band" typically employed to relocate GEO satellites, added McDowell in the report. They're roughly 37 miles (60 km) apart, and this "appears to be a deliberate synchronization," said McDowell to Gizmodo, which doesn't fit the Space Force's apogee kick motor designation. "If you just ejected and said bye-bye, you'd expect a steadily increasing separation," he added. And after renewed interest in monitoring space war tactics amid rising tensions between China and the U.S., we can be certain that the superpowers of the world are monitoring this situation very closely.
However, nobody said it had to be an apogee kick motor, and the evidence suggests it's actually something else. As of writing, it's "currently unknown whether the object is an [apogee kick motor], an object possibly related to space debris mitigation tests, or part of potential counterspace operation tests," wrote SpaceNews in their report. "The object could be used to test rendezvous and proximity operations, refueling experiments or manipulation using a robotic arm or other means." Both Shijian-21 and 2021-094C are still orbiting the Earth roughly 50 miles (80 km) above nominal GEO, "which is well within the band" typically employed to relocate GEO satellites, added McDowell in the report. They're roughly 37 miles (60 km) apart, and this "appears to be a deliberate synchronization," said McDowell to Gizmodo, which doesn't fit the Space Force's apogee kick motor designation. "If you just ejected and said bye-bye, you'd expect a steadily increasing separation," he added. And after renewed interest in monitoring space war tactics amid rising tensions between China and the U.S., we can be certain that the superpowers of the world are monitoring this situation very closely.
Space Station Will Make an Emergency Maneuver After Detection of Threatening Space Junk
A fragment from a Chinese weather satellite will come to within 2,000 feet of the ISS, prompting the orbital relocation.
By George Dvorsky
The International Space Station as seen from Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft on 28 September 2021.Image: Roscosmos
An impromptu “space debris evasion maneuver” has been scheduled to prevent errant space junk from slamming into the International Space Station, in what is becoming an increasingly routine procedure.
Preliminary calculations suggest the space junk will come to within 1,970 feet (600 meters) of the International Space Station on Thursday, November 11 at approximately 8:00 p.m. ET (Friday, November 12 at 4:00 a.m. Moscow time), according to Russian space agency Roscosmos. That’s too close for comfort, requiring the ISS to be positioned farther away from the danger zone. The maneuver is scheduled for Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. ET (11:15 p.m. Moscow time).
“The impact probability and risk to the International Space Station is very low,” a spokesperson from NASA explained in an email, adding that “the maneuver is a standard space station maneuver and does not require the crew to take any specific action.”
The sudden need to relocate the ISS is not expected to affect the launch of Crew-3, which blasts off later today from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as NASA officials noted yesterday during the pre-flight news conference.
The offending chunk of junk is a remnant of the Fengyun-1C spacecraft. China deliberately destroyed its own weather satellite in January 2007 as part of an anti-satellite missile test. The event prompted howls of outrage, as experts criticized China for contributing to the militarization of space and for deliberately producing a dangerous cloud of orbital debris. A fictional version of this event was portrayed in the 2013 film Gravity, in which a rapidly expanding cloud of debris, accidentally caused by Russia shooting down a defunct spy satellite, destroyed the ISS.
To keep that story rooted in fiction, flight controllers plan to move the ISS by igniting the engines of Russia’s Progress MS-18 transport vehicle, currently docked to the station. The chosen impulse strength will move the space station at a rate of 2.3 feet per second (0.7 meters per second) for six minutes, according to Roscosmos. The maneuver will increase the space station’s altitude by 4,068 feet (1,240 meters), placing it in an operational orbit some 262 miles (421 km) above Earth.
The ISS has performed 29 avoidance maneuvers over the past 22 years, including three in 2020. The most recent happened on September 22, 2020, when space junk belonging to a Japanese rocket stage threatened to pass within 0.86 miles (1.39 kilometers) of the orbital outpost.
It’s an upward trend that’s likely to get worse over time, as satellites increasingly enter low Earth orbit and as the volume of orbital debris likewise increases—and as we continue to drag our collective feet and neglect to do anything meaningful, such as limiting the objects allowed in space or funding the development of satellites capable of cleaning up our orbital mess.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified the Progress MS-18 as a Soyuz MS-18.
More: Space Force detects mystery object in orbit alongside Chinese satellite.
By George Dvorsky
The International Space Station as seen from Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft on 28 September 2021.Image: Roscosmos
An impromptu “space debris evasion maneuver” has been scheduled to prevent errant space junk from slamming into the International Space Station, in what is becoming an increasingly routine procedure.
Preliminary calculations suggest the space junk will come to within 1,970 feet (600 meters) of the International Space Station on Thursday, November 11 at approximately 8:00 p.m. ET (Friday, November 12 at 4:00 a.m. Moscow time), according to Russian space agency Roscosmos. That’s too close for comfort, requiring the ISS to be positioned farther away from the danger zone. The maneuver is scheduled for Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. ET (11:15 p.m. Moscow time).
“The impact probability and risk to the International Space Station is very low,” a spokesperson from NASA explained in an email, adding that “the maneuver is a standard space station maneuver and does not require the crew to take any specific action.”
The sudden need to relocate the ISS is not expected to affect the launch of Crew-3, which blasts off later today from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as NASA officials noted yesterday during the pre-flight news conference.
The offending chunk of junk is a remnant of the Fengyun-1C spacecraft. China deliberately destroyed its own weather satellite in January 2007 as part of an anti-satellite missile test. The event prompted howls of outrage, as experts criticized China for contributing to the militarization of space and for deliberately producing a dangerous cloud of orbital debris. A fictional version of this event was portrayed in the 2013 film Gravity, in which a rapidly expanding cloud of debris, accidentally caused by Russia shooting down a defunct spy satellite, destroyed the ISS.
To keep that story rooted in fiction, flight controllers plan to move the ISS by igniting the engines of Russia’s Progress MS-18 transport vehicle, currently docked to the station. The chosen impulse strength will move the space station at a rate of 2.3 feet per second (0.7 meters per second) for six minutes, according to Roscosmos. The maneuver will increase the space station’s altitude by 4,068 feet (1,240 meters), placing it in an operational orbit some 262 miles (421 km) above Earth.
The ISS has performed 29 avoidance maneuvers over the past 22 years, including three in 2020. The most recent happened on September 22, 2020, when space junk belonging to a Japanese rocket stage threatened to pass within 0.86 miles (1.39 kilometers) of the orbital outpost.
It’s an upward trend that’s likely to get worse over time, as satellites increasingly enter low Earth orbit and as the volume of orbital debris likewise increases—and as we continue to drag our collective feet and neglect to do anything meaningful, such as limiting the objects allowed in space or funding the development of satellites capable of cleaning up our orbital mess.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified the Progress MS-18 as a Soyuz MS-18.
More: Space Force detects mystery object in orbit alongside Chinese satellite.
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